Gears of War 2: Dark CornersReview

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Stop and...sneak?

By Charles Onyett

How you react to the new Gears of War 2: Dark Corners downloadable content will depends a lot on what you're looking for. To the many still playing online, Dark Corners is essentially a map pack, containing seven battle zones to splatter with blood and guts over Xbox Live. The added campaign chapter, called Road to Ruin, is just a bonus. If you're someone who's been looking forward to trying out more story-driven Gears 2 content and are considering Road to Ruin to be the primary draw here, well you're not going to be a happy gamer if you drop 1200 Microsoft Points (15 USD) to get it.

Let's start with the campaign chapter. It launches from the Gears 2 main menu from an option labeled 'Deleted Scene.' Before digging into the mission, a message from Epic design director Cliff Bleszinski plays explaining how this content was cut out from the campaign while Gears 2 was still in production, and after playing it's not too hard to see why. Road to Ruin takes place right after the incident with Maria in the Locust underground, just as Dom and Marcus are attempting to break into Nexus. Though there are a few sequences of dialogue included as you progress through and an appearance by a character franchise fans will recognize, it doesn't really do much to enhance the overall narrative experience.

The gameplay is also a little odd, since before running through the new content you're given the option to either proceed normally (kill everything you see), or to strap on some Theron armor and try to sneak past Locust guards. It plays just as strangely as it sounds. Though there aren't vision cones or anything like that on the Locust troops, Marcus and Dom will need to keep their distance since the Locust can smell them. You'll actually see the freakish guards sniffing around if you're within a certain proximity. Even so, the gameplay here feels cumbersome and underdeveloped, as it's simply a matter of waiting for Locust guards to continue on their patrol paths until there's an opening to rumble past or in some cases to take advantage of overly obvious environmental distractions.

Just so you know, what's covered in this review is only the Dark Corners downloadable content, which will be made available for 1200 Microsoft Points. If you're looking to pick this up but want all the Gears of War 2 downloadable content released so far as well, then it's the All Fronts download you want, which will be priced at 1600 Microsoft Points, or $20 USD. Check out our previous impressions of the Snowblind and Combustible map packs.

Of course you can always shoot your gun, which comically pops your helmet off your head like a Corona bottlecap at a fraternity party, prompting the characters onscreen to start yelling and bleeding and dying. Ah right, this is more like it. Once stealth is broken or if you've just decided to forego the sneaking system altogether, since it is optional, the game plays much better, though it's still not really a standout Gears of War campaign experience. You'll encounter boomers and grinders and bloodmounts and a reaver, but none of the battle setups are particularly memorable. In one instance you'll come face to face with a brumak on a bridge, which in case you're not familiar is a gigantic monster strapped with heavy weapons and rocket launchers, but there's not much to the fight since you just hop on turrets to take it down.

Hmm...

Road to Ruin isn't that long of an experience so you should be done in 20 to 30 minutes or so, and it didn't strike me as something you'd want to replay over and over. As Dom so elegantly puts it near the end of the chapter, "I'm done with all this sneaking ****."

The multiplayer maps are a different story, and should be greatly appreciated by people still blasting things to bits in horde and annex and all the various other modes. The most memorable map included with the new content is called Nowhere, set in a dusty station area littered with burned out husks of cars and low-lying buildings. With a few ramps up to a rooftop and a generally open view across a lot of the map, you can be sure the fighting is going to be frantic and brutal. Anyone content to sit back and peck away at others at long range may find it more difficult, since sandstorms regularly roll across the terrain, temporarily reducing visibility.